


The Littler Mermaid

by TulePubPirate



Category: Kingdom Hearts, The Little Mermaid (1989)
Genre: M/M, Mermaids, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 04:51:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1213366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TulePubPirate/pseuds/TulePubPirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a trip to Atlantica, Sora and crew find that not only is Ariel's true love waiting on shore, but a familiar face from Destiny Islands as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Littler Mermaid

“Won’t you come, Sora? Pleease?”  
Sora just knew if Triton found out, he was gonna get called “irresponsible” and “a disaster waiting to happen” and “undeserving of the title ‘Keyblade Master,’” but Ariel’s pleading face was so sincere. Plus, he was kind of curious about seeing her human Prince’s castle himself, and well, if she was gonna go anyway, it was better not to let her face any heartless alone, right? He looked at Donald and Goofy.

“What do you say, guys? I know I wanna see the surface here!”

Donald frowned but Goofy seemed game. “Uh-hyuk! I didn’t even know there was a surface world here!” 

“You mean we didn’t need all these fins and tentacles?” Donald sounded grouchy, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Sora laughed.

“Aw, come on, Donald! I kind of like having a tail! Would’ve come in handy trying to beat Riku at swimming around Destiny Islands!” Thinking of Riku made him nostalgic, and he knew how much Ariel must miss her prince—after all, he missed Riku just as much, he was certain. “Lead the way, Ariel!”

With a huge grin, Ariel spun around and took off towards the shore like a rocket. 

~

The castle was hard to see from beneath the waves, but Sora could tell it was beautiful. He almost wished he could walk so he could climb onto the beach to explore it. He wondered if his dolphin tail had an off switch hidden somewhere. He, Ariel, Donald, Goofy, and Flounder were tucked just under the surface, just in sight of a small balcony overlooking the waves.

“He comes out here every evening, to watch the sunset!” Ariel told them. She looked up anxiously. “He should be here any moment now! Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be able to stand up there with him!”

Just as Sora was wondering if he was going to have to shake Ariel out of a romantic reverie, the glass doors to the balcony opened, and two figures stepped outside.

“Heeeey,” Sora squinted, trying to get a better look at one of the faces high above them. “Isn’t that—?”

~

“Thanks for agreeing to come along. I know everyone will feel better with someone used to handling the heartless on board.” Eric smiled ruefully as they stepped outside. “I doubt we’ll see anything at all, but it makes my steward feel better.” 

Riku was only half-listening. He was distracted by the view of the ocean. It reminded him so much of home, he could almost swear he heard Sora calling his name out in the waves.

“I just need to find out the truth for myself! If the woman I saw really was a mermaid! No one believes me, but I swear it’s true!”

Riku had heard the story before, when he first saved Eric from a group of heartless on the road and was offered a place on his “expedition.” Mermaids. Sora would’ve been all over that idea. Riku could hear him now, holding his fists over his heart in excitement, eyes shining with excitement, “Just think of it Riku! Real mermaids!” In fact, he could practically see Sora jumping through the waves himself, swimming after some mythical maiden, arming flailing as he yelled that he totally saw one—could practically see him—could practically—Riku squinted. It couldn’t be? Could it?

“You do believe me, don’t you?” Eric asked.

“Mermaids, huh?” Riku turned his back to the pair of arms desperately waving above the water, and the spikey head of brown hair bobbing up and down on the waves. “I might believe you. Careful though. You don’t want some beautiful face to pull you farther down than you can handle.”

~

“Man! They went back inside!” Sora frowned. “I know that was Riku! But I don’t think he heard me!” 

Goofy drifted over and put a friendly fin on Sora’s shoulder. “Aw, don’t worry Sora! If Riku’s here, I’m sure we’ll see him again!”

“You really think so?”

Donald swam up to Sora’s other side. “Of course we do!”

“Aw, you guys are the best!”

“Hey guys!” Flounder shouted. “Th-there are heartless coming right this way!” 

Sora pulled his keyblade back into his hand. “Back to work, I guess!”

~

The ship was on its way back from an unsuccessful journey when dark clouds began looming over the horizon. Riku had lived by the sea long enough to know they were in trouble when that storm hit.

“Is this ship gonna be okay?” he asked Eric. “That’s huge storm coming down on us.” 

“I don’t know.” Eric answered, staring into the clouds himself. “I mean, we aren’t too far from shore, but there are a lot of reefs out here. It’s careful sailing in the best weather. If the wind knocks us into a reef…” He didn’t need to finish. Riku knew exactly what would happen.

“Hmm…I guess there’s nothing for it but to hope for the best.” If he were Sora, he would have been itching for a lifejacket. But Sora always worried too much—Riku knew if worst came to worst, he could swim. Rain started beating the deck, and wind followed soon after.

“Here she comes!” the man at the wheel shouted. “Brace yourselves! You’re about to learn what it really means to get ‘wet’!”

~

“Oh no! A storm!” Sora didn’t know how Ariel could hold herself so still despite the crashing waves, nor how she could see anything through the rain, but the rain and waves themselves were enough to convince him she was right. She sounded almost panicked. “The ship’s never gonna make it! What’ll happen to Eric!” 

They had found the ship almost on accident. A fight with the heartless had driven them up to the surface near the ship itself. Sora would never have noticed it, but Ariel almost had sonar for things from the surface world. And the subsequent afternoon spent spying had told them Eric and Riku were on board, headed home. 

Now, however, it looked like they might not make it.

“Ariel, we can’t stay here! This storm’s way too bad! I can barely swim!” Sora thought learning to swim through Atlantica’s deep, calm waters was hard enough—the surface during a storm was almost impossible. “I think we should—“ His words were cut off as a huge blast of wind cracked the ship’s mast. The huge pillar crashed down on the ship and sent a number of men overboard. One of whom, even in the storm Sora could see, had silver hair.

“Riku!”

 

Sora darted forward as fast as he could through the water. Riku must have been knocked unconscious—he didn’t even try to keep afloat. He just dropped through the water like a rock.

“No! Riku, hang on! I’m coming!” Sora desperately grabbed onto his arms and tried to haul him to the surface. He thought he knew which way the shore was—if he could just get Riku to land! “Hang on, Riku! I won’t let you go! I promise!”

~

“Riku please don’t die on me! I don’t know how to give mouth-to-mouth! I wasn’t paying attention when you tried to teach me I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Riku please wake up! Please!”

That was weird. Riku could swear that was Sora’s voice frantically sounding over his head. His eyes fluttered as he felt two hands cup the sides of his face. “So…ra?” He squinted as his eyes opened. The sun was shining right overhead, hiding the face above him in shadow.

“Riku! You’re alive!” Suddenly the shadow was smothering him with hugs, and a pair of salty lips were smushing down on his.

“Agh! Get off of me! God, you taste like bad fish!” Riku started coughing as he wiped his mouth. Sora’s eyes were even more blue than usual as they welled up with tears.

“You’re okay!” Sora had him pinned to what Riku could now see was a deserted stretch of beach. He tried to think back to how he had gotten here, and came up blank. As if sensing his confusion, Sora held back his sniffles enough to explain. “When your ship hit that storm, you fell overboard, and me and Ariel were watching you and I swam to grab you, and I tried so hard to get you back to land, I’ve never swam so hard in my life, I pulled you all the way here by myself! I rescued you!” 

“You did huh?” Riku smiled. “Then I guess I shouldn’t be so picky what your breath smells like, should I?” Sora wiped another tear from his cheek as he smiled back. “Stop crying, you dork. I’m fine. Or do I need to prove it?” He started sitting up, but froze as he noticed something strange.

“You’re a dolphin.” He blinked. There was even tiny dorsal fin. 

“What? Oh, yeah! I guess I am!” Sora laughed. “Well, I have to blend in if I’m going to be in Atlantica!”

“And here I was thinking it was stupid of Prince Eric to fall in love with a mermaid.”

“Hey! I’m a merman!” 

“A merman who tastes like fish.” Riku cut off Sora’s pout with a kiss. A hard kiss. When he pulled back, Sora was smiling too. “And here I thought mermaids drowned handsome sailors?”

“Guess that means you aren’t handsome then.” 

“Shut up, loser!” Riku shoved him away playfully and laughed as Sora struggled to flop back on his stomach with his tail. “You’re lucky I’m not hungry for sushi!” 

“You bet you’re hungry for my sushi!” Sora wiggled what Riku supposed was his dolphin butt in the air, in what Riku supposed Sora meant to be seductive manner. In spite of how ridiculous it looked, Riku blushed. 

“Are you asking me to fuck a dolphin? Cause I don’t do fins.” 

“What? Oh, come on!” Riku laughed and stood up, straddling Sora where he lay in the sand. If he let Sora come to him, he’d be waiting all year.

“Sorry, no way. Your human half, on the other hand…”

When Donald and Goofy eventually found them, still stranded on the beach, Riku didn’t even mind that Sora had whacked him so many times with that tail that his legs were going to have bruises, or that his hair was never going to be free of sand, or that his face was as red as a stop sign. 

~

“You know Riku,” Sora swam on his back next to Riku, his hands tucked lazily behind his head as they let Donald and Goofy get ahead of them, leading the way back to the castle. “You’re lucky to have a boyfriend like me.” 

Sora watched as Riku tilted his head back to laugh, the sun making the sand in his hair sparkle, just a bit. “Am I? Why’s that?”  
“Well, not every boyfriend would go the lengths I do for you. Do you even know how far I swam to get you to shore? And here you didn’t even notice me when I called out to you from the ocean a while back!” 

“You mean that flailing sea monster was you?” 

“I did not flail!” Sora sent a splash Riku’s way.

“Did too!” Sora began to pout, but his face broke into a grin as under the water, a hand slipped into his. “I had to pretend not to know you.”

“Oh yeah?” Riku looked down at him, and Sora’s grin grew wider. “Oh well…I guess I love you anyway, Riku.” His heart grew warm as he saw Riku blush. His red-faced boyfriend looked up at the clouds as he mumbled,

“Yeah, love you too, Sora.”


End file.
